Enticing the people

PERVEZ Musharraf is now gone and many believe he is history. Perhaps the former military dictator thinks otherwise. Some people argue that the reason he is not leaving the country is because he intends to wait a few months when people begin to miss him and want him back.

He is probably calculating that people will soon get frustrated by the indecision of the civilian regime and remember the list of deeds he mentioned in his last speech.

Clearly, the former general made an effort to draw a wedge between the newly elected rulers and the people by projecting himself as part of the middle class. In doing so he deliberately juxtaposed himself with the political class that has traditionally been depicted as consisting of feudal landowners and big business.

The former president foresees a time in the near future when people might get frustrated on several counts such as the fate of the judiciary, selection of the new president and the fate of the coalition. The political parties will possibly have to blame themselves for some of the frustration. The coalition wasted a lot of time getting rid of the general, and that worked to his advantage rather than to theirs.

It is true that the regime is being noble in not trying him but asking questions is another issue altogether. It would be only fair to out-manoeuvre him by at least talking about issues that are critical to Pakistan.

For example, what happened to the US aid the contract for which was signed in 2003 and according to which Pakistan was to get $600m? The American government and think tanks claim that the US has given Pakistan $1.7bn annually. According to the information provided to parliament, US largesse comprises $300m in economic aid and $300m for the military.

Subsequently, after the earthquake an additional $50m was given but it still does not amount to over a billion dollars. The Pakistani government has never denied it and it would be interesting if the former president is questioned about the money in greater detail.

Asking such questions is important before the former president tries to assert himself. His speech indicated that he has already tried to connect himself with the people. Incidentally, many people subscribed to the theory of Musharraf representing the middle class while he ruled the country. I remember a discussion with the famous Pakistani poetess Fahmida Riaz a couple of years ago in which she explained her reasons for supporting the military dictator. Her point of view was that he was not part of the feudal class but came from an educated, working middle-class family.

Ms Riaz had even forgotten about her own experience under a previous military dictator. For her Zia was bad because he had brought the mullahs on board, a trend which was reversed by Musharraf. Incidentally, even the bulk of the Indian population sympathises with Musharraf on the basis of his middle-class legacy.

The underlying assumption is that educated and liberal middle-class families can bring progress to the country which other groups cannot. But is that really the case? And did Musharraf represent the middle class?

It is a fallacy to treat the former general as part of the middle class, just as it is to classify the military elite as part of the middle class. The aforementioned assumption is based on the lower middle-class and middle-class linkages of the bulk of the military personnel. A result of the indigenisation of the officer cadre during the mid-1950s was the increased induction of men from the lower middle and middle classes.

The point to remember, however, is that class orientation changes after officers become part of the organisational elite. A similar thing happens in the civil bureaucracy. It is not hard to come across civil and military bureaucratic households where officers, their wives and children are either embarrassed of grandparents who appear less sophisticated or consciously pretend to have no link to their origins.

Such behaviour is part of an effort at upward social mobility. The military generals and senior bureaucrats are no different from the rest of the ruling classes who keep a careful distance from those below them. The organisational machinery is used in different ways to especially enrich those at the top.

Gen Musharraf with his declared assets worth approximately Rs500m emerges as more than a member of the middle class. His 50 acres of land in Bahawalpur have the facility of a farm-to-market road; a good supply of water and about a dozen paramilitary personnel to guard the land round the clock. These men were supposed to guard the land and look after the date palms planted on the farmland. However, the family responsible for tilling his land did not even get access to medical facilities.

Other senior officers enjoy similar comforts that are not available to ordinary soldiers who are granted land in areas they do not belong to. Such facilities are not provided to landless peasants who are often given land by different governments as part of political patronage.

The ruling elite may develop differences over the distribution of resources or the question of who will have greater power. But the fact of the matter is that they have common interests. The state bureaucracies are organisations where entry is not denied on the basis of one’s class. But the organisational promotion system is then used for social climbing for the comparatively more capable. Once the officers reach the top they integrate with the rest of the ruling elite. There is then no difference between the feudal landowner, a general, a federal secretary, a big industrialist and a big businessman.

The liberal values that Musharraf and his supporters boast about are part of the tradition of the ruling elite or the post-colonial administrative and military structures. General Ziaul Haq was an anomaly that happened to Pakistan also because Islamabad’s external partners during the 1980s such as the US allowed him to breed greater ideological conservatism that could help fight the war in Afghanistan.

Once the need was over, the Pakistani state and its military machine were encouraged to revert to older traditions, and the gap created in the period when Ziaul Haq was at the helm was bridged. So, socially, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Pervez Musharraf represent the same tradition that many refer to as a sign of middle-class values.

There is also no evidence that the middle class itself is the key to solving the problems of Pakistan’s elite politics. It would be sadder still to let Musharraf launch himself at any point in time as the answer to the needs of the common man. We will have to keep searching for the answer to the ills of our system.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

The triumph of democracy

PRESIDENT General Pervez Musharraf is not a popular figure in India. He is associated with the war in Kargil where New Delhi’s loss in terms of men was heavy. His abrupt withdrawal from the Agra summit on being accused of encouraging militants across the LoC still rankles in the mind of the people.

Even otherwise, a military dictator in India which has inured people to democracy is considered anachronistic. A remark here or there to recall the ‘services’ of Musharraf to Pakistan should not be taken as an expression of Indian opinion.

National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan’s statement, made one week before Musharraf’s resignation, does not represent the government’s position. He had said that Musharraf’s exit would create a vacuum where the radical extremist outfits would be free to do what they liked.

Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee has clarified that Musharraf’s resignation is Pakistan’s internal affair and that it would not affect bilateral ties. The BJP, which is hawkish on Pakistan, has said that it is not concerned about Musharraf’s exit which is an item for Pakistan’s domestic politics.

The Manmohan Singh government has very little political input. At times, it looks as if it is influenced by bureaucrats like Narayanan. But when firm policies are framed, the government’s attitude is that of understanding and conciliation towards Islamabad. Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani must have got this message when he met India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Colombo on the sidelines of the Saarc summit. More assuring is the word from official sources in Delhi that Musharraf’s departure will have no effect on the peace process between the two countries.

What is, however, disconcerting is that New Delhi tends to copy Washington. America likes dictators because it finds them more convenient to deal with. A democratic structure is found to be cumbersome because it requires the participation of elected representatives who are many in number. India’s officialdom is inclined to prefer one person to the government of the people. Yet support to the authoritarian set-up does not have popular acceptance. People defeated at the polls even Mrs Indira Gandhi when she turned authoritarian during the emergency (1975-77).

A few Indian newspapers have expressed their apprehension of uncertainty after Musharraf’s exit. But this is because they have come to equate Pakistan with military juntas. Long years of military rule have changed perceptions about Pakistan in India. It is generally believed that the army in Pakistan will never quit and the people there have more or less reconciled themselves to the eventuality.

This makes it all the more necessary that the army’s role in Pakistan is lessened. The real test in the minds of the Indians is the control of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). If the original decision to put the agency under the interior ministry is restored, the space of the army would shrink and that of the democratic forces expand.

I recall my meeting with Musharraf in Islamabad two years ago. During our discussion on Kashmir, he was arguing how the territorial regrouping of Jammu and Kashmir could make borders irrelevant. He had an interesting point of view. I told him that the Indian parliament might not agree to his proposal. He asked me why the parliament should come into the picture when he, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the respective cabinets would have approved the proposal. He honestly believed in what he said. It is good that Musharraf has gone on the mere threat of impeachment. A democratic polity has no place for persons like him. I hope he comes to realise this wherever he lives.

As far as the post-Musharraf era is concerned, many in India believe that Asif Zardari of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League will be at each other’s throat after the departure of their common enemy. Some reports of their wrangling are a cause for worry. Yet the two must realise that they have the best of opportunity to get Pakistan out of the authoritarianism, helplessness and economic backwardness in which the country has been stuck for some time.

It is only fair that the judges dismissed by Musharraf are restored to their position immediately. In fact, the lawyers’ agitation for their reinstatement prepared the ground for the return of popular rule. They are the ones who have put derailed democracy back on the track. In any case, different agitations have toughened Pakistan. It has come of age. Whatever the differences, people have awakened enough to fight for the democratic polity if it is threatened again.

Some of us, who lit candles on the Wagah border on the night of Aug 14 and 15 could not say firmly whether Musharraf would quit. But it was apparent that democracy had returned to Pakistan. Nearly 50 people, men and women from the other side, came right up to zero point and held aloft the lighted candles to greet us. The spectacle was charged with emotion because never before, since Independence, had anybody come to the border at midnight to join us for the candlelight vigil.

In the past, every time we lit candles on the border, the question asked in India was how many came from Pakistan. Since none would show up, we replied “none”. Our explanation that the military and the fundamentalists had stalled the effort to reciprocate did not convince many, particularly the media. This time when the Pakistanis came, the media was too squeamish to report.

The Border Security Force on our side was so considerate that it even opened the iron gate at zero point. Although the gate on the other side remained shut, we stepped further to exchange candles. I must admit that the candles from their side were fatter and sturdier. No pun is intended to convey that the feelings of friendship on their side should be sturdier than the ones on our side. Now that democracy has dawned in Pakistan the candles at the Wagah border should burn brighter in the years to come to underline the desire for peace and amity between the people of the two countries.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

Masquerades of dictatorship

FROM the inception of Pakistan to the exit of its latest strongman, Gen Musharraf, people have watched the kaleidoscopic masquerades of dictatorship, with each dictator changing the mask but retaining the soul.

Pakistan’s first decade passed under the extended shadows of colonial dictatorship which had four prominent features. First, the colonial legal framework, the India Act of 1935, was maintained. The act sowed the seeds of conflict within the executive by introducing a ‘dyarchy’ at the centre. The purpose was to make the appointed governor-general exert dominance over the elected prime minister.

Second, true to the colonial obsession with security, a security rather than a welfare state was erected on the twin pillars of ‘ideological threats’: communism and Hinduism. The Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case and the Kashmir dispute were adroitly used as conclusive evidence of these threats.

Third, the colonial method of ‘divide and rule’ was continued. Disillusioned, the Bengalis abandoned the Muslim League soon after Independence. The rifts between Daultana and Mamdot in Punjab, Ghaffar Khan and Khan Qayoom in the NWFP and Khuhro and Hidayatullah in Sindh were exploited by a half-sly and fully senseless governor-general to dismiss elected prime ministers, and that too with judicial approval.

Fourth, stifling the spirit of the compact of the resolution of 1940 which promised, inter alia, cultural freedom to the nationalities, a Stalinist ‘cultural’ policy was pursued to instill ideological rather than cultural consciousness among the nationalities. Urdu was made a vehicle of this cultural onslaught, which soon boomeranged into alienation and led to national resistance in the east, culminating in the birth of Bangladesh.

The second decade began with the first constitution in 1956. The constitution was an oxymoron. It laid the foundation of a federal and democratic country but denied the fundamental principles of democracy and federalism: majority rule and provincial autonomy.

The so-called ‘parity’ was nothing but a stratagem to forestall the Bengalis from forming the central government, and to keep civilian rule eternally servile to a dictatorship duo: the bureaucrats led by Iskander Mirza and the closeted Bonapartists led by Gen Ayub.

Employing Goebbelsian sophistry, a well-entrenched myth was created to malign politicians as being inherently inept, corrupt and unsuitable for governance, notwithstanding the fact that some of these politicians were Jinnah’s comrades and anti-colonial stalwarts. In just two years, five governments were removed by this bureaucratic dictatorship.

In 1958, Gen Ayub climbed the pulpit wearing a Bonapartist mask. Napoleon Bonaparte, notwithstanding his eternal quest for military glory, had also aimed for social and political engineering. Modern continental Europe and its civil law owe much to his political genius. Ayub also wanted to reinvent his image as a great general and social builder.

But alas, the self-appointed field marshal failed to leave any Bonapartist imprints in the annals of the military or in the development of social and political institutions. All he created was a totalitarian state with its attendant ills: central planning, crony capitalism, a fearsome security apparatus, draconian press policies, political repression and a pro-US military alliance. As a result, when he was removed from power by his fellow generals, the country was internationally isolated and internally left facing a gruesome civil war between the two wings.

The third decade began with the third dictatorship. Yayha’s dictatorship was closer to the garrison state of Frederick the Great — rule of the army, for the army and by the army. Initially, Yahya wore no ideological mask. But when the majority voters gave a clear and loud mandate to the Awami League in 1970, he put on the mask of a national saviour, refusing to hand over power to the ‘renegade’ Bengali leadership.

Hubris made him blind to the political reality that dictatorship, howsoever masked, had failed to resolve the national crises. It was time for him to transfer power to the elected leadership to resolve the crises. True, such a move was fraught with the possibility of Bengalis seceding from the federation, but at least that would have saved the country the subsequent bloodbath and ignominy of defeat. Alas, it was not to be. The dictator was unable to understand the nexus between democracy and national integration.

Then came a brief democratic interregnum during which the country received its third constitution in 26 years, but one that was abrogated by the fourth dictatorship. General Zia’s dictatorship was forged in the mould of Cromwell. Both rose to power through regicide. Both relied on the army to sustain themselves, and both used religion to legitimise their tyranny. Not surprisingly, both left a common legacy: religious violence, political conflict, cultural regression and international isolation.

Indeed, Zia’s dictatorship turned out to be the most destructive because he targeted the soft underbelly of the polity: the socio-cultural ethos and schismatic diversity. Like Mussolini, he wanted to change through force and fiat not only the economics, politics and foreign policy of the country, but also the personal morality, political precepts and religious beliefs of the people, a task left only to prophets or revolutionaries, not unpopular despots like him.

In the fourth decade, four elected governments were toppled by the same kind of dictatorial powers that operated in the first decade, and on similar charges: corruption, inefficiency, security risk.

In the fifth decade, the country saw its fifth masquerade of dictatorship. Gen Musharraf came as a Kemalist, which he was not by analogy or actions. Ataturk was the hero of Gallipoli, where he defeated the Allied forces. Musharraf was smudged in the debacle of Kargil.

Kemal abolished the decadent caliphate and created a modern secular Turkey. Musharraf banished secular leadership and ruled with the help of social and religious conservatives. Kemal earned peace and respect for his nation. Musharraf pushed the country into a self-destructive war, making it subservient to US dictates.

Kemal was universally venerated as Ataturk (father of the Turks), but alas, Musharraf could not secure enough votes to legitimise his military rule. Finally, Kemal strengthened political institutions, whereas Musharraf botched them for his personal gain.

In fact, Musharraf’s dictatorship was a rehash of the Ayubian model. Hence, his legacy is not different from that of Ayub: civil war, economic disparities, political crisis and institutional breakdown.

Its time that the masquerades stopped. Not because all the masks of dictatorship have been ripped open by the people, but because now the people can rip out its soul.

shahabusto@hotmail.com

Obama on the offensive

BARACK OBAMA has launched a sustained and sharply negative advertising campaign against his Republican opponent John McCain, who has vaulted into the lead, according to an opinion poll.

The first ever black presidential nominee has repeatedly promised that he would transcend the bickering of traditional politics. Trying to keep that pledge, but also the competitive edge, Mr Obama is now running an uplifting national advertising campaign while delivering fierce attacks on his opponent at the local level in key swing states.

The aggressive fightback comes after Republican underdog McCain opened up a five-point lead, according to a Zogby/Reuters poll published on Tuesday, completely overturning the seven point lead Mr Obama had in July.

Mr McCain now leads Mr Obama among likely voters by 46 per cent to 41 per cent. The poll found that voters believe Mr McCain would be a stronger manager of America’s declining economy, even though he admits to knowing little about economic issues.

That is a worrying reversal for the Obama campaign and follows unrelenting attacks by Republicans on his lack of wartime experience, his opposition to oil drilling offshore, and accusations that he is a “talker” rather than a “doer”.

The Illinois Senator built his campaign on a promise to transcend the bitter divisions of American politics and is maintaining this high-minded approach in prime-time adverts across the country. But in cities such as Philadelphia, Des Moines and Tampa, where undecided voters remain sceptical about Mr Obama after a tough primary season, he has gone on the offensive.

Without any media fanfare, his campaign has rolled out a series of attack ads in the states that will be pivotal in the 4 November election, seeking to paint Mr McCain as an elitist who is disconnected from the country’s suffering working class voters.

Mr Obama’s tone reflects growing anxieties within the Democratic Party that their candidate has been damaged by a fusillade of attacks by Mr McCain in recent weeks while he has been holidaying in Hawaii. The political spotlight abruptly turned to Mr McCain, who used Russia’s invasion of Georgia to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

The latest poll was taken last week, while Mr Obama was on holiday. “There is no doubt the campaign to discredit Obama is paying off for McCain right now,” the pollster John Zogby said.

Mr Obama’s negative campaigning has yet to turn personal, although his activists have urged him to do just that. They want his campaign to draw voters’ attention to Mr McCain’s “flip-flopping” on issues such as immigration, tax cuts for the wealthy, and torture. As the columnist Eric Alterman put it in The Nation: “He conducted an adulterous affair before leaving his disabled wife, enjoys eight residences across the country, as well as corporate jets.”

Instead, Mr Obama’s aggressive ads have contrasted a statement Mr McCain made about the economy: “We have had a pretty good, prosperous time with low unemployment”, with ordinary people talking about their financial woes: “The prices of gas are up; the prices of milk are up,” says one. Mr McCain made his remarks last January before the US economy went into a nosedive and has since run ads saying: “We’re worse off than we were four years ago.”

Some media watchdogs, such as FactCheck.org, part of the Annenberg Public Policy Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, have branded the adverts misleading. “We certainly for a while were finding a lot more in McCain’s ads to complain about,” said centre director Brooks Jackson. “That pattern certainly has shifted a bit.”

Mr Obama has three polling organisations working for him, all of which are picking up voters’ concerns about the economy. In response, he has blanketed at least five cities and large urban areas with attacks on Mr McCain. “If you can go quietly negative, that’s what he’s done; I think the perception is that he’s still running the positive campaign,” Evan Tracey, of TNS Media Intelligence, told The New York Times. “It’s a pretty smart, high-low, good cop/bad cop strategy.”

— © The Independent, London